Blind Faith
Blind Faith

THE REVIEW

Happy end of July to everyone! I make my debut on this site, as unique as it is rare, with a review of an album that, alas, has already been reviewed (nevertheless excellently reviewed, so no hard feelings, dear Deneil!), which, however, I just have to adore. It's Blind Faith, the blessed year of 1969. I bought it on CD seven years ago now, back when I was a sixteen-year-old hungry for rockblues, and in my chronic hunger for blues guitarists, I approached this album more because of the name screamed on the back cover of a certain guitarist playing on it, rather than for all the other exceptional musicians. It wasn't even love at first sight: I was looking for Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and to be honest, this album sounded decidedly far off, old, dated compared to what I was looking for at the time. However, as with wine, musical tastes slowly improve, and this album has inexorably won me over and continues to enchant me like few others can...

But let's move on to the album. As mentioned, the year was 1969. It so happens that just at the end of the previous year two of the greatest English pop rock bands of those astounding years had disbanded. They were Cream and Traffic. Cream consisted of Eric Clapton on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums, and they had revolutionized blues by expanding it to psychedelic visions and bringing it to unheard-of levels of distortion for the time (and precisely for this reason epochal). However, after just two years, they broke up due to internal tensions and musical differences. The three musicians, in particular, were tired of the limits of blues, the stressful rhythms of success, and also the volume and roughness of their sound. Eric Clapton, in particular, had made the decision to leave the group after hearing that great piece of disc entitled "Music From The Big Pink" by a certain Band. On the other hand, Traffic had been one of the most original bands of 1967-68 with their psychedelic pop filled with folk and jazz nuances, thanks to the contribution of the horns. But the backbone of the group was the singer and keyboardist (but also multi-instrumentalist, let's be honest) Stevie Winwood. And precisely Winwood, just twenty years old but already illustrious and in the pop limelight for almost five years, suffering from a syndrome of excess success, decided to part ways with his group for a while; certainly not to give up playing, though. And if you add that Eric and Stevie are quite good friends (they played together years earlier for a very short time in Powerhouse, but that's another story...) and free from commitments, it's inevitable that the two would start playing some jam sessions and why not, even some original pieces, to have fun (not just fun, actually: Stevie wants to save his friend from an increasingly fierce attachment to drugs, so why not try lifting his spirits by playing?) but also to seek some new musical path on an individual level, under the influence of that Music from the Big Pink.

However, a drummer is needed, and since Eric, when closing with Cream, had promised that giant of percussion known as Ginger Baker, who was also a bandmate, to call him if he had some idea on his mind, he decides to fulfill the promise. It all seems to go smoothly, fun, relaxation, no pressure from pesky managers and record companies in search of sales records. Except, well, it is known that the world is the same everywhere, and even in London, rumors circulate, and when they concern people called Winwood, Clapton, and Baker... and so it is that the idyllic retreat of the three musicians soon comes to an end. In fact, ironically, Baker and Clapton on one side and Winwood on the other are divided by two different record labels, which, to resolve the problem (in simple words: to make profit, and a lot, both of them), decide to release the album with the label to which the first two are linked, Polydor, but under the patronage of the Island boss, who boasts rights over Winwood. Moreover, with recording and concert commitments in sight, the three think it wise to expand the lineup with the addition of the French bassist and violinist Ric Grech, who had just recently left Family.

This is how this beautiful album was born in a short time, which, however, has to deal with the objective lack of time and therefore also with aligning enough material.

The album opens with a jazz blues piece by Winwood, "Had To Cry Today", where Clapton's guitar reigns supreme: from the base of the riff, our Eric launches into a series of overlapping solos but absolutely encrusted in this gem of a piece, and we are far from the sound of Bluesbreakers and Cream, the sound has only a slight overdrive, it is clean, precise, and reverberated, and hearing Eric play like this, I assure you it's a unique pleasure. But the best comes with the next piece, the stunning acoustic ballad "I Can't Find My Way Home", also by Winwood. His voice, ethereal, sweet, and so fragile, always seems on the verge of breaking, masterfully accompanied by his companions, who contribute an ethereal and dreamy atmosphere with the blend of acoustic guitar, very soft drums, and lightly hinted bass. As the third track, we have a cover, "Well All Right", taken from Buddy Holly's catalog and reinterpreted in a pop rock way, which stands out at the end with a deadly jazz improvisation. It's not a minor piece, but rather a clear example of divertissement that the four loved to do. Closing the first side of the vinyl we find another gem, this time from Eric Clapton: "Presence Of The Lord". Clearly influenced by "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by his friend George Harrison, to whom he gave a memorable and unsurpassed solo, and with whom he wrote Cream's last hit, "Badge", this piece aligns with the ones just mentioned for a slow, solemn, and majestic rhythm, perhaps very much a child of its times (and repeated ad nauseam in the following years), but no less charming for it.

The second side has only two titles. We return to Winwood, who presents "Sea Of Joy", the most melancholic track of the album, despite the title, but still the most fascinating along with "Can't Find My Way Home"; Winwood's painful lament is immersed in the folk melody, with Grech's violin prominently featured. And now we arrive at the most controversial piece of the album, or rather, the piece with the most controversial duration. There is no doubt that "Do What You Like" finds its rationale in proposing another virtuosic drumming by Baker, who is also the composer of the piece, but also in the need to cover a 40-minute duration for the LP; a necessity even more felt since the group was not able to assemble enough material. However, the piece, which pays a strong resemblance to "What A Bringdown" also by Ginger (appears on the last Cream album), is quite enjoyable in the first five minutes, in which we are given the stunning organ solos by Winwood (very folk, very Celtic) and Clapton (very Latin, almost Santanesque, if not for the fact that the album came out simultaneously or just before Santana's debut), only to then fall with a bass phrasing by Grech we could have done without and a long (but considering the character not the longest) drum solo and finally a coda in which the main theme is resumed. Too bad, because it represents the only weak point of this album. A weak point that, however, does not scratch the greatness of the music because that is and will always remain sublime. And even on its own. After a troubled American tour in which the group had to face the lack of material to play live, the always omnipresent management needs, and the obsessive screams of Cream fans wanting to hear those pieces reincarnated with the new lineup, Blind Faith couldn't withstand the blow, with Clapton ever more depressed and immersed in hard drugs, and the individual members taking new paths. But this is History, what matters is the music of Blind Faith.